How to measure the ROI of an Employee Advocacy program?

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Unlike online advertising campaigns that offer near real-time conversion tracking tools, it is not always easy to justify the return on investment (ROI) of “organic” communication actions like Employee Advocacy.

However, by taking advantage of these advertising tools, it is quite easy to measure the results of an advocacy programme and to see that the impact is much greater than an advertising campaign…

Why is the calculation of ROI important?

ROI is the ratio of your net profit to your costs and is usually your most important indicator. Its calculation, based on your advertising objectives, allows you to analyse and determine the real impact of your campaigns.

The calculation of ROI mainly allows you to know the value of the profits made by your advertising campaigns, such as Facebook Ads, Google Ads or your LinkedIn ads. Thus, it gives you precise information on how to manage and spend your marketing budget.

For example, let’s imagine that after calculating the return on investment of your campaigns, you realise that one of them generates a higher ROI than the others. You will be able to review your budget management by allocating a larger share of the budget to it, while reducing the share devoted to the least performing campaigns. The results observed will also allow you to improve these less performing campaigns.

The click & its equivalent advertising cost

If you have ever had to advertise on social networks, you are probably familiar with cost per click (CPC) or cost per impression (CPM). This is how companies like Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook… charge you for their services.

But as the average cost per click or cost per impression continues to rise, this social media advertising strategy can be increasingly expensive for companies (and therefore less profitable depending on their results).

As the total number of clicks is one of the key indicators of your approach, a very simple way to measure the impact of Employee Advocacy is to calculate its Equivalent Paid Media.

The ROI of each click generated on your content via the relay of your Ambassadors can be estimated from the cost per click you would have paid on LinkedIn or Twitter for the same theme (keyword):

EA ROI = no. of EA clicks X average ad CPC

👉 Example: your Employee Advocacy program brings together 500 ambassadors who generate an average of 10 clicks per month and costs you €2,000 per month, including the cost of the subscription and time spent. The keywords you use in your communications have an average CPC of €4. We can therefore calculate the following ROI:

Monthly ROI: (5,000 x €4) – €2,000* = €18,000

* average monthly cost of an Employee Advocacy program.

Your Employee Advocacy strategy’s ROI

Calculating your benefits with the equivalence of the media advertising cost is one of the key indicators and therefore not the only one to take into account to measure the overall ROI of your Employee Advocacy strategy.

Indeed, other important sources, both quantitative and qualitative, must be taken into account when analysing the return on investment of your approach.

Quantitative results

Number of clicks: total number of clicks generated on the content shared on all the social networks connected to the platform.
Evolution of the total audience: aggregates the audiences of your collaborators to reach beyond the “corporate” channels.
Lead generation and conversion: ensures that salespeople have a regular presence on social networks and generate new qualified opportunities (read more here).
Website traffic: the increased audience generates more traffic to your website and/or your corporate social networks.

Leaderboard Limber — Example of a Limber Leaderboard (ranking) with the number of shares, clicks and engagements generated.

Qualitative results

Employer brand visibility: facilitates recruitment and reduces turnover rates.
Corporate communication: humanises communication and makes it more effective via employees’ personal accounts (about 8x more engagement).
Recruitment: enhances the value of the company to attract future candidates and reduces the turnover rate in order to increase the loyalty and well-being of current employees.
Personal branding : enhances the profile of employees by sharing their expertise with their network and reinforces their employability.

Employer branding is both an HR and a marketing issue. We have deciphered the subject in this article!

Measure your R.O.I. with Limber

The Analytics tab of your Limber platform gathers results and statistics that will allow you to take stock of the performance of your Employee Advocacy programme.

Dashboard Limber platform — Example of the Analytics Dashboard on the Limber platform.

Constantly monitor all the indicators that interest you (shares, clicks, etc.). Then optimise all your content, the shares you have made and the campaigns you have set up.

You can also benefit from simple and precise statistics from your platform’s Leaderboards. Decode the trends that emerge and make justified marketing decisions.

3 best practices to maximise the performance of your Employee Advocacy program

We can’t repeat it enough: creating and sharing quality content is key in any Employee Advocacy approach.

In addition to this little reminder, we share with you 3 best practices to apply when deploying your ambassador program in order to maximise its return on investment.

1. A sponsor in top management

Involving a senior manager in your company is a real asset even before you have deployed your approach!

Whether it is the Director of Human Resources, Communications or Marketing, having the support of one or more key management figures in the deployment of your ambassador program will help you to involve more employees and give even more credibility to your approach during internal communications.

2. Centralising the management

Having a project manager who manages the program from its deployment phase ensures that the community is animated in the long term and that there is a single internal contact person who is responsible for the smooth running of the project.

This project manager may be responsible, for example, for curating, creating and distributing content, setting up events (challenges) and monitoring the results.

This person will also be the primary contact for the CSM (Customer Success Manager) of your platform in order to be supported in the deployment of your program and to establish optimal monitoring of the proper use of your tool throughout the partnership.

3. Animating your community

The tools are essential, but approach’s animation and the value given to the Employee Advocacy program are fundamental!

The initial enthusiasm due to the newness of the program allows it to be initiated, but it can quickly lose interest as time goes by. To keep the program alive throughout the year, it is important to maintain the commitment of your employees by establishing regular internal communication that will encourage them and animate the program.

For example, it is common to set up reports on the results of the use of the platform, challenges (“gamification” mechanisms), surveys (on the relevance of the content proposed, on the use of the tool, etc.).

👉 Find out how to value your most active users in this article.

Limber was designed to deploy your Content Marketing, Social Selling and Employee Advocacy strategies with ease. The platform allows you to centralise content and share it on various channels such as newsletter, blog and social networks.